Journal ir0b0t's Journal: Logic and Polis
These are two of my favorite words to see linked together. I like logic in connection with polis becaue it reminds me that I don't think that logic is the tool for doing the work of a city. That work is conceived differently by different people, but I think of it as the work of giving substance to the social contract, i.e. tuning the economy to feed, clothe, shelter, heal and educate.
I like polis in connection with logic because it reminds me that the most interesting questions to me are humane questions. Moral and historical problems are ghastly when stripped of human concerns or framed for cynical objectives. Within the community of the polis we are more likely to remember that we are not alone and that others depend on us.
Here is a sample from a speech which expresses these ideas for me:
. . . For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but most importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love --- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. . . .
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
RFK 4/4/68, Indianapolis
I like polis in connection with logic because it reminds me that the most interesting questions to me are humane questions. Moral and historical problems are ghastly when stripped of human concerns or framed for cynical objectives. Within the community of the polis we are more likely to remember that we are not alone and that others depend on us.
Here is a sample from a speech which expresses these ideas for me:
. . . For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but most importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love --- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. . . .
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
RFK 4/4/68, Indianapolis
